Gate of Bone
by Laryna6
Summary: The replica has weird dreams and shouldn't drag the rest of them into his nonsense.
1. Chapter 1

Gate of Bone

Theme 4: Mirage/Dreams

Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of the Abyss or Love Hina, from which part of the concept is shamelessly cribbed. Normally I can't stand fanservice, but I love this show and it's surreal magical realism mythology-referencing over-the-top WIN.

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Asch doesn't know why he's surprised that it's dreaming. It's just like him, isn't it, his replacement, and he dreams so it must. He must.

The replica's dreams are nothing like Asch's, the sort of inanity one would expect from it. Oddly enough it dreams in color, which Asch doesn't: the colors are too-bright, the world saccharine and childlike.

Dream-Natalia is a shrew chasing the replica with a lasso, dream-Guy is wearing an apron while building a mini-albiore, and the 'story' of the dream, which is strangely easy for Asch to puzzle out, is that Luke is going to fly away to go join Master Van in Daath. All the doors and windows have prison bars.

It's, it's insulting that the dreck wants to exchange the life Asch longed for the life Asch had and craved escape from, only he couldn't because the damn replica had taken his place, was proof there was no home where people cared about him to go to. The replica is his damn replacement, it should stay in the damn manor and keep Natalia happy, keep Mother from worrying, that's what it's for (as well as dying in his place, which it amazingly failed to do, or perhaps frustratingly is a better word).

But the only things that make dream-Luke smile, that brighten this world to that hue when indeed, everything else is a washed-out grey that doesn't make Asch ache because he's not that weak, are escape and Master Van.

And when the mini-Albiore (piloted by Tear and powered by that pet cheagle, wings flapping earnestly) reaches Daath, Master Van is there, and practicing the same moves he was with Luke a few minutes of dream-time ago with Asch, and Asch starts to realize that to Luke he is the replica, the replacement, who took everything he ever wanted.

Luke has no right to feel that way. Natalia, his parents, his home, Van: they were all Asch's, Luke's from the beginning.

He tries to tell himself that as Master Van picks Luke up disdainfully, Asch's avatar in the dream jeering at him, and tosses him down through a hole that conveniently appears (it's a dream) into the Quiphoth after whispering 'foolish replica Luke,' the words laden with dark significance that breaks Asch's pretense of disdain, because Master Van would never have treated him like that but the replica is him, only it's dreck that deserves to be treated like that, only it's such a damn child, as devastated on that broken, sinking island in the muck after seeing Van happy with Asch as Asch was after seeing his family happy with it.

If all his family wanted was someone they could call Luke… It's just a replica! But it's all that's going to be left of him in this world after he dies, and so it needs to shape up and start acting more like him and marrying Natalia and making her happy the way Asch never could!

It's that cheagle that lifts Luke out of the abyss, and then they're walking through the forest to the cheagle's home, where Luke addresses the replica Ion as the cheagle elder (he's wearing the ears for it, replacing that weird traditional hairstyle) and the cheagle proceeds to accidently melt down that terrible excuse for a fon master guardian's gald. It was Anise's job to be incompetent and not notice all the discrepancies and let Van use up her principal right under her nose, sure, but that's no excuse. And then she was a traitor on top of that and let Mohs kill him.

Van surely knows how to pick them.

Luke a foolish enough replica to go to Akzeriuth even though Asch, his original, ordered him not to and Asch…

Has just been grabbed by the necromancer. It appears that Anise, being a cheapskate, has been stealing all the ingredients for her cooking from Engave, and the 'cheagles,' joined by a struggling Asch and another Ion replica, have been sold to the circus. "What a stupid dream."

"I quite agree." The necromancer, who still hasn't put Asch down, is in a Dark Wings outfit now and still manages to look good in it (the bastard). He rolls his eyes as the center ring is occupied by Peony doing a trained rappigs act. Actually, he could probably do that act in real life. Those pets of his may be allowed to wander all over the place but 'cute Aslan's' trampled more than one thief.

Anise's fontech doll uses her as a ventroloquist's doll next.

"You're stuck in his dream too?" Asch asks Jade, surprised. He and the replica have had that stupid link ever since he had Dist synchronize its fon slots with his at Choral Castle, but how could the necromancer be here?

"We all are, except for one of us who isn't aware he's dreaming. A fascinating phenomenon, probably related to Lorelei's status as the sentience of memory as well as time, sound, and so forth." Dist was booed off stage by Anise. "I believe the next act is you being fed to some ligers."

Asch tried to give him a glare. "You mean a liger-taming act."

"Well, I suppose you could change it around a bit. It's your act." Jade was unphased and Asch was hooked on the tip of his spear and lifted over the wall of the liger cage. "Although they've been rather testy since the _actual _liger tamer left us."

Oh no. The 'ligers' are Sync and what Asch at first prays is just the replica but seems to be the actual fon master. Sync avoided Arietta but he refrained from making trouble when she was there and Ion, well, Arietta had been the one thing he didn't want to tear apart behind that serenity. Asch only got reminded of his upcoming death occasionally, by Van, with the reassurance that the replica would be sacrificed and Asch would survive. Ion had it rubbed his face every time they demanded he read the Score.

There isn't much Asch can do. Sync's enough trouble but a Fon Master who can use his powers? Daathic Fonic Artes are the strongest in the world. Nothing left of some idiots who attacked him but splattered blood and bone fragments. "You're dead."

"Not dead enough," Ion growls, and Asch is reminded of the legend that the souls of seventh fonists go to the fon belt when they die.

"Why are you here? The replica never met you." Asch tried to keep him talking while he prayed that some opportunity for escape would appear.

The two of them laugh, and it's a psychotic laugh, all the worse for being in stereo. "The ashes of the sacred flame." Asch can tell Sync is grinning behind that mask, the liger's fangs bared.

"He never was all that bright." Asch can _see _Ion's smile, and the Fon Master _always _smiles, for he does indeed know something you don't, or rather a lot of things. "But yes, I have met Lorelei's replica."

"Lorelei's replica?" The dreck was _Asch's_ replica, his replacement, his property, even if they were both Lorelei's isofons, but before he can gather himself, or perhaps override his survival instincts enough to protest Sync is lunging for him and Ion is casting and Asch falls through a trapdoor.

"This is getting ridiculous." Asch had to work at it to stand up. "Hey, replica! Wake up!"

"Asch?" Natalia, still wearing the cowgirl outfit with lasso from the manor. Asch only notices now that the lasso is a flower chain, a flower crown. "Have you seen Luke?"

"Not since Cheagle Woods."

"Oh dear. Let me know if you see him, will you? I've been trying to get him to hold still. There are things I need to say to him." Natalia left the way she had came, vanishing like a dream as Asch reached after her, calling her name.

"You can just say them to him in the morning!" Asch screams, frustrated, and then his eyes widen when he hears the ceiling above him start to break and starts running, because he knows it's Ion and Sync coming after him. He runs after Natalia, even though she abandoned him.

Instead he encounters the pair of wimpy Ion replicas, only they don't seem quite as wimpy when Ion unleashes an arte that sends the real Ion and Sync flying up through the roof all the way, Asch can see through the hole, to the fon belt. Asch grimaces, refusing to say thank you to a blasted replica, but Ion's just smiling at him, clearly reading his mind and since he just saved Asch and Asch is refusing to thank him that makes the replica the more noble one, the better man here, and Asch can't stand that. "Thank you, but I could have dealt with them myself," he manages to grit out.

"No need to thank me, it's part of my duty as fon master emeritus," and before Asch can ask what that means Ion has taken Flower-something's hand and left him behind saying something to it about Tear, and what sounds like 'cake after death' that Asch can't quite make out since Anise's doll is approaching fast.

Asch is run over, in fact, and lies there cursing the stupid replica and his stupid dreams as Anise screams for Ion to wait, but they're skipping up into the sky and, "I know you hear me, Ion! Ion!"

"My, I'm glad I mastered lucid dreaming all those decades ago." The necromancer is there again, with popcorn.

"Where's that blasted replica?" Asch asks after Jade hooks him with his spear again and pulls him out from under the crying girl's doll.

"A question with several possible answers. I think I need to give the matter further study." Jade isn't looking at Asch, but up at the fon belt, although he's able to jump out of the way when Peony approaches with rappigs and avoid being run over.

"Hey!" Asch protests, since Natalia is riding one of those rappigs as they run up into the sky.

Anise is crying now. "Ion…" And Jade is patting her shoulder awkwardly, having hung the popcorn bag on his spear.

"I'm afraid they've gone where we can't follow. Popcorn?" Anise glares at him but takes some of the popcorn, sadness turning to anger at the world in general and for some reason Asch in specific. He's not afraid of her but that glare makes him wonder if perhaps he should be.

"Want a lift?" It's Guy with that mini-albiore, only now it's more of a rocket and Tear is sitting where the cheagle-engine used to be.

"Hmm, no, I had my fill of trying to walk where only angels tread a long, long time ago. Do make sure that Peony gets home safely, however. There's still more of those tiresome celebrations in the morning."

"Celebrations? Celebrations of what?" Asch asked, confused. "What's there to celebrate?"

"My thoughts exactly," Jade concurs as Anise tries to scoop Asch up. "No, no, he needs to stay here." Jade's spear blocks Anise's arm.

"But," Anise motioned conspiratorily up at the sky, then at Asch.

"It doesn't work that way, Anise. Believe me, I hoped for a miracle too."

"You?" Anise and Asch both stared at him.

"Well, miracles are to be expected of higher beings, after all. Of course, the trouble there is that granting miracles is at the discretion of said being. We might not be satisfied with the outcome," and Asch knew that there was some meaning to those words that eluded him, although Jade's eyes didn't let him escape their gaze. "But all of us are just going to have to live with it. The only alternative I can think of is destroying the world."

"What are you talking about?" Anise didn't get it.

"Anise!" Arietta? "My Ion likes me more than your Ion likes you!" She was above them, on a hresvelgr, with the Fon Master on her arm and her tongue sticking out at Anise.

"I'll kill you, you bitch! Again!" Anise jumped up onto the Albiore. "Let me at her!"

"I find it hard to believe that that girl is older than Tear." The necromancer took another bite of the popcorn.

"And you didn't have to work with her." The world seemed to be getting smaller and smaller, falling apart around them. "Is Luke waking up?"

"A fascinating question. If Luke were to remain within his body then the answer would be yes, as you are waking up. However, as the Big Bang theory has been validated once again we must first ask ourselves if Lorelei ever sleeps."

"You mean this isn't the replica's dream?"

"Yes, although not the one you're thinking of." Jade's smirk remained etched in Asch's mind as the irritating man began to thankfully vanish away. "Lorelei had your fonon frequency first, after all." He looked up. "They are going to get home alright? Or should I drug him to keep him asleep a little longer?" No answer. "If you don't return them I'm going to be very put out." Jade's sigh lingered when he was gone.

And then Asch was left alone, the ground beneath his feet falling away in pieces until he stood on an odd glyph.

"Replica!" he called out, because he didn't want the thing to fall into the miasma.

"Asch?" And there he was, right behind him. Only he kept changing, child in a child's smock to enthusiastic boy with a wooden sword to weary hero, images flickering like the light of a sacred flame and Asch knew there was nothing there but images, but memories, nothing solid to touch when he reached out (but there was no sense of touch in a dream, not a normal dream, and why would he reach out to the replica?)…


	2. The Morning After

_This exists to explain what was happening in the previous chapter, for those who haven't watched Love Hina._

* * *

As Jade got up and calmly began to dress, just like any other morning, he reflected that while there had been several moments in his life that had been rather painful, on reflection (once he'd learned to identify the pain in his chest as emotion – originally he'd thought that heartache was another stupid metaphor), and he'd lost several important things or never been capable of gaining them, it was when _Dist _pitied you that you knew that you had hit absolute rock bottom.

Years ago, Dist had asked him about _that _in the first place because he'd been worried about Jade's _feelings_, and then he'd tried to give him some stupid platitude about how Luke's memories would go on.

Dist, that little runny-nosed Saphir who had kept running after him and being slow and forcing Professor Nebilim to repeat lessons until he got them instead of giving Jade all of her attention. He'd thought he'd just been upset with the fact the idiot's slowness was causing him to be bored, at the time.

He'd had a crush on her and been jealous and hadn't even _realized_ it.

To be fair, perhaps Dist's idiotic platitude had been internally consistent… from principles that had long since been disproven. He'd just been too weak to face facts the way Jade had and persisted in his delusion.

Yes, Asch would, and now did, contain Luke's memories, due to taking over Luke's brain where those memories were stored along with his body, but memories and personality were not the same thing. Jade had used the Professor's body so that her memories would end up in the replica (since he'd had no ability to control the seventh fonon, the fonon of memory), but all attempting to preserve that dead bit of tissue had done was cause the replica's brain to be non-functional in interesting ways (not that he'd appreciated them at the time, scientific curiosity or not).

Dist had clung to the hope that memories made the person, that a perfected Nebilim replica with her memories would somehow become her. He'd clung to that stupid, childish hope even after they'd discovered that wasn't the case together. For the Big Bang effect to trigger, the replica had to be made before the original died. There had to be a vessel for the fonons to flow into so that they didn't leave to the fon belt.

And that wasn't even taking into consideration the horrible thought that perhaps what Jade had done had scrambled her fonons too much for even that. That perhaps he'd killed not only her body, but her very soul, trying to impress and then save her.

Luckily, only hyperresonance was capable of doing something like that, and Jade wasn't even a seventh fonist.

Luke possessed the power of hyperresonance, and Jade had spent some time trying to think of a way to convince Luke to kill Asch with that power, destroying the young madman's fonons before they could mingle indistinguishably with Luke's own.

Purely as a hypothetical, of course. He'd known there was no way that Luke would be willing to do something like that to save his own life. A life he'd been wanting to give up since Akzeriuth, a martyr with far too many causes.

No, Jade had an intense dislike of the word impossible. He was not a person who gave up, except on attempting to pound sense into lesser intellects. Teaching was, in most cases, almost, no, quite literally physically painful (the way the body made emotional pain physical was fascinating, now that he noticed it. Of course, perhaps his body had been trying to shout his emotions to him all those years, since he'd been so obstinately deaf to them, and so his headaches were more intense than other people's?). Were they _trying _not to learn?

And yes. Very often, they were indeed trying not to see the truth. Because truth, like the truth that Luke was never coming back, was often a very painful thing.

He hated when important things were impossible, but saving the lives of important people, so he would not have acknowledged that saving Luke's life was impossible if that hadn't been the case.

Despite such thoughts, he adjusted his belt, practiced summoning the Blood Pain from within his fonons: all part of his normal morning routine, as were the thoughts that came to mind when he looked at the Blood Pain.

Such an appropriate name. Pain was part of the human condition, in the very blood. When he'd been called a monster was when he'd managed to convince himself that he felt no pain, and as he forced himself to learn to be human life became more and more painful.

And memories, like all those associated with this weapon. Her, and _her, _and Dist's insane (because the definition of insanity was attempting the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, an especial sin in a fonologists) attempts to give her back to him, bring back those happy days, which Jade hadn't understood at all because he hadn't even understood that he'd _been _happy then.

The weapon sank back into his arm, into his very veins, and he reflected that in his younger days he'd be giving Peony a physical exam now.

Before he'd learned what trust was, or rather found that there were some things that were trustworthy.

He doubted that Luke knew what it meant, that Jade had offered him his left hand instead of his right, but some things needed to be done, useless and sentimental or not.

He _was _going to need to conduct another physical examination on Asch, however. Even though the damage had been reversed (Lorelei controlled time, after all), he was still inhabiting Luke's body. If he strained himself too much, his fonons would begin to separate the way Luke's had been, and while personally Jade didn't really care about Asch, other people, who Jade _did _regard as worth the air they were breathing, would be upset if he died. Especially so soon after his return.

Jade wondered idly if Asch had ever figured out what was going on. Luke had been far quicker on the uptake than his original, although to be fair Asch simply had far more things than Luke that he was refusing to see. It was theoretically possible that he had a good head on his shoulders, if he ever used it. And now he definitely did, because it was Luke's head on Luke's shoulders that he was using.

Now Anise was also a very bright child. The idea of bringing Asch up to the fon belt and dragging Luke back down to be placed back into his body was an inspired one, except that it didn't work like that. As he'd told her, the only way to move Luke would be to create a replica world, even then they'd have to be careful they didn't just get Lorelei (he'd have to find some way of destroying it with hyperresonance as well as Asch without destroying Luke as well: what Vandesdelca had planned had been simple by comparison), they'd have to destroy this world for raw materials the way Van almost had (not to mention that destroying the original's body was necessary for the Big Bang effect in the first place), and even then there was no guarantee that he'd form a human-shaped aggregate in their lifetimes.

Well, perhaps he would, to yell at them.

Luke would truly hate being the cause of yet more deaths.

Really, he needed to stop working out the logistics of things that he definitely wasn't going to do. Tsk tsk. He shook his head at himself as he closed the door behind him and walked towards the guest quarters. Tataroo Valley was Malkuth territory, after all, so Natalia had thought the diplomatic thing to do was to head here first.

Why? It wasn't as though he'd wanted Asch to come here.

Celebrating the return of a hero required that the person who had returned actually be a hero, after all. Nevertheless, Peony had given him an imperial welcome and there were certainly going to be tiresome celebrations and the presentations of some of the awards that had been given to him while he was dead, to honor the dead.

Except he wasn't dead anymore and a triple-crossing assassin? Was far from honorable.

Psychopomp or not.

It had been interesting to watch the others start to realize that they were in a dream, or at least apply the logic of the dream. He hadn't thought Anise was a seventh fonist, that doll had seemed to do most of the work of casting the resurrection arte, but it appeared she had at least a breath of the fonon inside her.

Only seventh fonists went to the fon belt. When they died.

He would have been far more worried that perhaps they had, and he would be left behind, if he hadn't known Luke.

It had still been a relief to wake up and see that Peony was still breathing.

What happened to those who weren't blessed with the fonon? With nothing to contain their memories or selves, no brain or fonons, they simply dissolved into the earth. Nothing left of them to be reborn or feel guilt. He was quite looking forward to it, really.

And then he froze, because _he knew Luke_.

Surely Luke wouldn' t have done that to him. Surely not. He knew how Jade felt, he was the only one who truly understood besides Peony. Surely he wouldn't have made him a seventh fonist. Anise must have just had the potential all along.

Except Luke hadn't cared what they wanted when it came to keeping them alive.

He would have to test himself. And then decide what he was going to do.

After he examined Asch.

He was almost cheered up by the sounds coming from behind Asch's door. Smashing things after something like this was a healthy reaction, well, as far as Jade knew, and he couldn't break things if he were dead.

After briefly knocking on the door in his best military fashion, Jade opened it. The room almost resembled Peony's, except for the absence of rappigs. And instead of Peony lounging on his approximation of a bed Asch was standing in the ruins of a mattress, clenching his fists and breathing hard.

Asch had seemed almost supernaturally calm when he'd returned. Jade had suspected that it was even worse than he had thought for awhile, that neither Tear nor Natalia would be getting the one they wanted back.

Asch had taken the body because he was Luke's original, yes… but Lorelei was the oldest of them all.

However Auldrant was still intact, so Lorelei still had a vessel to inhabit. Natalia had gotten back her childhood sweetheart, and it had seemed as though he'd matured during his absence somehow.

"I forgot," Asch said as some kind of explanation. "I didn't remember."

"That's how dreams normally are. You forget that it is a dream." You forgot that this had happened before. You thought that it was real.

Jade had kept thinking that she really was dying in front of him, and he really was failing to save her, over and over again until he'd learned to control his dreams.

"I dreamed that he was still alive, it was sometime after our fon slots had been synced and I was invading his dream that way. Was that really you?"

"Most of the people there were real, except for the ones without faces." The miscellaneous cheagles, for example.

"He wasn't real."

"No." If he still existed. Jade hoped he did, hoped that he had escaped his body before Asch had devoured his mind, two streams of golden light had flown upward from Eldrant and there was a chance that… Well. Perhaps he could ask the others in the morning.

"I didn't remember his memories either, while I was dreaming. It's still coming back to me now." Asch, well, no, he had reclaimed the name Luke fon Fabre even before his death but everyone still called him Asch, still didn't quite know what to think about this. "They'll be fine. Everyone was talking about wanting to see him." Earlier that night, while the wine flowed. "I knew what I was doing and then… I didn't."

"So you do still have some control over your abilities?" Jade asked, voice deceptively mild. If Asch still retained the power of hyperresonance? Well, that changed matters, didn't it? Especially since he had said that he didn't possess that power anymore.

Not even going a day without lying? Well, what did one expect of someone who had turned traitor so many times?

He shook his head. "No, otherwise I could have done it while I was awake. I wished that they could, and… We're still linked." He reached up, though the ceiling blocked his view of the fon belt. "Or I'm still linked to _something_, I don't know… I knew somehow that it would be granted, that they could, and I fell asleep. I couldn't go," he realized. "I can't go back."

Was he just talking about visiting or did he mean that he couldn't return to the fon belt at all? Jade wondered which he meant, but didn't ask. There were people he actually cared about. "They will return, won't they?"

Asch nodded. They both knew Luke, and if Lorelei was anything like him?

Not that Asch was anything like Luke. "Well then. Do try and get more sleep, tomorrow will be long and boring."

As for Jade, he had some blood fonon tests to run.


End file.
